As most of you should know by now, the Georgia Tech boathouse was hit hard by the flooding of the Chattahoochee River. The main boathouse was at least 6 feet under water with the river stretching all the way to the steps of the Church. It was certainly a sight to see, and if you haven't seen the pictures yet, go look.

So, once the water receded, the team came together and cleaned up. Everything was covered in 3-6 inches of mud and the equipment had been scattered all over the yard. Launches and ergs were taken apart and pressure washed, boats, shoes and oars were scrubbed with bleach and the turf on the ground was scraped and scraped to try and remove the ridiculous amounts of mud caked on top of it. After a full days work, things were looking up.

But, unfortunately, the team cannot get on the Chattahoochee until further notice. Officials are saying it will be weeks before all the waterways are free of
sewage and sediment, and tons of trash collected by the storms is
cleaned up. According to the AJC, federal officials tested the river and found the E. coli bacteria level was 42 times greater than the highest safe level. So this leaves GT Crew without a home for a while.

Thanks to the generous efforts of Lake Lanier, the team has packed up their new big trailer with as many boats that will fit and moved up to Gainesville. They travel up there every weekend, getting in 2 practices a day. It's frustrating and more time consuming, but they are grateful to have a place to row for the time being. We are hopeful that things will improve quickly at home in Roswell and they'll be back in their comfort zone as soon as possible. We'll keep you updated.

GTCA Meetings

The next GTCA meeting will be Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 6:30pm. The location is the College of Management at Technology Square on 5th Street by Georgia Tech's Campus.

All are welcome to attend. You can see all of our meeting minutes here.

Loss of a Good Friend

We are sad to announce that a friend of Georgia Tech Rowing has recently passed away.
Douglas Crucet was a great man with a kind heart who spent much time around the GT boathouse these past few years. You may remember him walking his dogs on the path or lending his tools and hands to fix up things around the yard. He was one of the
most generous men the team has ever know. He was a mentor to the team and the coaches. He
will be missed tremendously. Douglas donated the pairs boathouse and
fours boathouse to the team (yes, there are multiple boathouses, sheds and shacks) as well as the six WinTech singles! There are no funeral services, but we know he will be missed and the team is creating a memorial for him.

New WEBSITE address

We are making lots of changes... and one of them includes migrating to an official Google Apps website. This allows us to keep all shared documents, our Officer wiki, website and contact lists all in one place. Because of this change, we will be using http://www.gtcrewalumni.org as our official website. You should still be able to reach us http://www.alumni.gtcrew.com once the transition is made, but we urge you to use our new URL from now on. A big thanks to our Treasurer, Bob Baxley for mastering Google and all of it's awesomeness. (And let me tell you, it's pretty awesome.)

While you're at our new link, be sure to check out all the Archived Newsletters. They're all there! And did you forget that we have all the legendary Sound Philes? Oh yeah. Pump it up.

Elections

Nominations have been EXTENDED until October 2nd. This is due to the recent opening of the Merchandise Chair position. Our current merchandising officer, Catherine Owens, has accepted the nomination for President - therefore leaving her previous position open.

On
September 14th, active members received a 2009 Voter ID number with the form for nominations. The reason for the number is to allow the election system to be completely anonymous yet keep people from voting more than once.

So you can STILL make nominations here. If you do not have a Voter ID number, please become an active member - it's only $25 and you get a t-shirt!

Accepted nominations will be posted on the on our website as they are accepted or rejected. There are already four nominees listed on the site.

Elections will be help from October 5 - October 9, 2009.

On
October 5, voting will begin and all active members are to use their 2009 Voter ID number again to make their selection. You will receive an email with a form for voting and it will also be available online.

The 2009 GTCA positions that are now up for election are:

President

Secretary

Events Coordinator

Merchandise Chair

A simple majority
vote of active members is needed to elect an
officer. All voting will be done by secret ballot through the GTCA
website. New positions are
officially determined during GTCA's Homecoming Weekend: October 17, 2009. You can find more information on our website and if you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to let us know.

The annual
Georgia Tech Crew Alumni Homecoming Tailgate is once again open to
general membership of the GTCA (friends, family and alumni of GT Crew).
Socialize with fellow rowers, alumni and friends while enjoying free
food and drink before the big game.

Location: The same location as the 2009 tailgate. Parking
lot
between the Physics Building and Mechanical Engineering Building
(the corner of the lot that faces Ferst Drive). See the MAP here.

Time: 4 hours before game time. Game time announced 10-12 days prior to kickoff.

10/10/2009 Head of the Chattanooga (Chattanooga, TN):
Last year, Georgia Tech had to compete in borrowed boats because of the
unfortunate trailer accident. This year they'll be coming off the horrible flood that kicked them out of the boathouse... but at least they'll be bringing their own
fleet on their own trailer that was fully funded by us, the GTCA!

10/17-10/18/2009 Head of the Charles (Boston, MA): The GTCA will be at the reunion village
at the Head of the Charles this year. Members of the GTCA who reside
in Boston are planning a GT area in the reunion village with the GT
alumni club in Boston.

11/07/-11/08/2009 Head of the Chattahoochee (Chattanooga,TN):
The big race of the Fall for all schools in the South. The Head of the
Hooch pits Georgia Tech Crew against some of its stiffer competition in
the South. The women have to face very competitive Division I NCAA crews, like Clemson, while the men take on varsity crews like Jacksonville, and perhaps Florida Tech.

11/14/2009 Head of the South (Augusta, GA): The final
race of the fall season for Georgia Tech Crew. There's no better way to
finish the season than with a win at the Head of the South. Come help
cheer for our athletes as they try to do just that.

11/20/2009 Tail of the Beaver (Roswell, GA): We hope to continue our annual fall scrimmage against UGA
and mix things up by doing some mixed rowing and inviting some other
schools to participate. If you're a local, you don't want to miss this!

Annual Spring Picnic

If you noticed on the left hand side of this email, we have a list of upcoming dates. One of the new additions is the Annual Spring Picnic. We have set a tentative date of April 24th, 2010. Last year we had conflicts with Easter and announced the date a little later than we wanted to. This year, we are going to get you the information as soon as we can so you can start planning your trip now.

2010 will bring many changes and exciting movements within the team and we look forward to celebrating them. In addition, we will be recognizing over 15 years of Coach Rob Canavan and Georgia Tech Crew. 2010 will be Coach Rob's 17th Spring Season with GT Crew! We hope you can join us for this momentous occasion. More info to come soon.

The GT Crew Affinity Group (GTCA) is organized to
promote and facilitate the engagement of GT Crew Alumni, Affiliated
Students, Friends, Faculty and Staff with the Georgia Tech Alumni
Association, the current Georgia Tech Crew team and the Institute as a
whole.

In an effort to keep in touch with all our alumni, we will
be sending out this newsletter periodically to let you know what we
are
up to. The easiest way for us to remain in contact with you is for you to continue to receive this newsletter. So please don't unsubscribe unless you really don't want to ever get any information from us. In addition, send it to a fellow teammate, make sure they got it too. If they didn't, they can subscribe right at the bottom of this email. And don't forget, you can always update your bio with us on our website.